Vice President JD Vance has said that he wants the Trump administration’s crackdown on violent crime to go nationwide following the federal takeover of Washington, D.C.
After President Donald Trump deployed the military in the nation’s capital last month and launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago this week, Vance suggested the same sweeping action could be rolled out across the U.S.
Vance chatted Tuesday night with disgraced former congressman-turned MAGA host Matt Gaetz on One America News, where the failed attorney general nominee threw softball questions at the vice president.
Gaetz asked the vice president what his message was to the Americans living in “crime-ridden cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago” and what “hope” the Trump administration can give them.
“If you just do some common-sense law enforcement, you can give the American people back their streets,” Vance said. “I would love if we did this in every big American city, because I think that American citizens deserve to live safely in these big cities.”
The vice president, who went unchallenged throughout the 13-minute sit-down with Gaetz, blamed “weak leadership” for allowing “criminals to take over the streets.”
“We’ve all had this, this experience where you pass somebody on the street who’s obviously crazy, who’s screaming and yelling at your kids, you cross to the other side of the street to avoid that person,” Vance said.
He said the solution was to “just throw those people in jail and keep them in prison.”
Vance earlier hit out at Democrats on violent crime and accused them of “lying” about the root causes of violent crime.
“The big lie the Democrats told about violent crime is that it’s “systemic” and therefore no one’s really responsible,” Vance said in a post on X. “If the “system” is to blame then you fund a bunch of nonprofits that don’t do anything besides give jobs to underqualified radicals. The reality is that the gross majority of violent crime is committed by a very small group of people and we should be throwing them in prison.”
Trump reinforced the same message Tuesday when he dined out at swanky D.C. eatery, Joe’s Stone Crab with members of his Cabinet, including Vance, to demonstrate how the city’s restaurants “are now booming.”
The president claimed that people haven’t gone out to dinner “for years” until now.
“We’re standing right in the middle of D.C., which, as you know, over the last year, was very unsafe place… over the last 20 years, and now it’s got virtually no crime,” Trump said. “The restaurants now are booming. People are going out to dinner where they didn’t go out for years, and it’s a safe city.”
The president said an announcement was due Wednesday about another city the administration was targeting on violent crime.
During the vice president’s sit-down, Gaetz did not ask Vance for his take on the latest development in the Epstein files saga after the House Oversight Committee released a sexually suggestive letter Monday, allegedly signed by the president in 2003, and sent to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump has denied authoring the letter.
The letter, which the White House has repeatedly dismissed as “fake news,” is at the center of a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Trump against the Wall Street Journal.
Trump snapped back at reporters who quizzed him further about the Epstein birthday note during his Tuesday night outing.
“No, that’s not my language. It’s nonsense,” Trump said. “And frankly, you’re wasting your time.”
